Sara Johnson Allen is a professor and author whose debut novel, Down Here We Come Up, was the winner of the 2022 Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press. She is finishing a second novel and starting a work of creative nonfiction, which is an exploration of cultural and political history through personal narrative, centering on her 17th century home in coastal Massachusetts. When she is not teaching or shuttling her three kids around, she writes about place and how it shapes us.